London Bombings

The London subway bombings this week will no doubt heighten the rhetoric on both sides of the Iraq War debate. Ironically, President Bush said many of the right things in his public statements immediately after the attack. He emphasized hope and compassion and framed his comments in the context of the G-8 Summit’s emphasis on poverty and AIDS. Such rhetoric should rightly be met with skepticism on the part of peace activists, but it nevertheless provides a standard by which to judge the President’s actions in the future.

As Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive points out, the London bombings illustrate how futile the “war on terror” really is, and how our imperialist adventure in Iraq actually leads to more bloodshed. As David Sirota of the Progressive Legislation Action Network writes in his web log, perhaps the most telling element of the London attack is lays bare how hollow the argument is that by attacking Iraq we “took the war back to where it originated.”

How long before we face this kind of tragedy on our own soil again? The most important thing we can do for national security is to abandon the war and bring the troops home now. — Gary